In this next installment of Print Advertising Wars, we'll discuss the messages within the latest .NET print ad. This new ad has started to appear in magazines this month (December 2002) and appears to replace the "Slacker Coder" ad. There appears to be more subliminal messages within the new "Monday meeting" ad than the prior .NET ad targeted to developers.

The two page ad shows a conference room with several people in it. The people are at eye level to the reader. As discussed in prior installments, all the people within .NET ads were below the reader's eye level until the campaign change in October 2002. Psychologically, we're supposed to better relate to the people in the conference room -- they're at "our level". All the people are "pleasingly bland".

The walls to the conference room are interesting. The far side of the conference room has slats in the windows. The reason we can see the far side of the conference room is because it is a windowed conference room. We're seeing the people from outside the room.

Off to the left, closer to our point of view, is a table with two monitors, an open box of VS.NET, a keyboard, an empty chair and other materials. We can see the displays on both monitors. The right monitor has actual code on the screen -- if you look close enough, it's a TRY/CATCH block.

The people in the conference room are bunched up on the left hand side with the exception of one person on the right hand page. That person to the right has a Pocket PC next to him on the table. He's wearing a watch on his left wrist. He has a pencil in his right hand. He is wearing glasses. He's playing with his fingers and his eyes are shut. Apparently he's the developer who usually sits at the empty chair. He's clearly bored.

On the image is a white outline on the right hand monitor (the monitor with the code). There is text above and to the right of the outline on the monitor. The text is "It can get you out of DLL hell." This same white outline surrounds the bored developer but the text is lower. It says "It can't get you out of the Monday morning status meeting."

Here's our first subliminal message. We see the monitor (with code) and then look up to read the message. We see the developer and look down to read the message. Get it? Look up at .NET, look down at your developer. In fact, it one needs to look at the ad a few times to realize the developer is at the same eye level as the rest of the people in the room. Your inclination is to think the developer is at a lower eye level than others.

Because of the angles, hidden areas and reflections made by the windows, I simply cannot describe the rest of the room with complete accuracy. There are three other people in the room that we can see directly. These people are looking to our left. These three are looking toward the end of the table. One gets the impression that these people are looking at the person who is running the meeting.

There is an image of a fourth person. But that's the kicker -- it's a reflection of a person who would be sitting at the end of the table if we could see the end of the table. From our point of view it looks like these three people are looking directly at the image. It looks like the reflection is running the meeting. Then again, maybe it's not a reflection -- maybe we're seeing this person directly but reflections in from of him are making him appear translucent to us. It's even possible that this image is a reflection of the person in the striped shirt. I simply cannot tell for sure. Regardless, this "image" is the leader of the group.

We can see words written in marker. It's clear that these are IT diagrams describing processes. However the text is written backwards. Why is that? Imagine for a moment that the windowed walls closest to us is clear plexiglass. If text were written from in the conference room, we could see it from outside the conference room -- but it would be backwards. Imagine trying to read the wrong end of a clear whiteboard.

In fact, it's entirely possible that what I just describe is exactly what is happening. Trouble is, I don't know of any meeting room like that. It could be a reflection of a whiteboard from within the conference room. It could be a reflection from an unseen wall to the left of the monitors. Trouble is, how would we see the people in the conference room? I don't know. (Stray thought -- Is Microsoft trying to fool you and I with windows?) Anyway, there's backwards text, written by hand, suspended in mid-air. We can make out "XML" pretty easily in a couple of places.

I was curious to the written text, so I took the ad and reflected it in the mirror.

There are boxes and arrows and whatnot that won't translate well into written text but you'll get the idea of what's happening. It's pretty easy to perceive "XML" -- it's written in all capital letters and it's repeated in several places.

Read from the top to bottom are the following processes: (To reiterate, from our view this text is written backwards.)

XML Web Services
Public Interface GetAuthors
Update Authors

Web Client Application
Web Form
(To the right "Web Form") -- XML Web Service
(To the right "Web Form") -- Call from HTTP
DataSet
(something unreadable) Disk
DataGrid

Windows Client Application
(Several lines unreadable)

XML Web (cut off, text runs into person's hair)
Call via HTTP

There's one set of boxes left to describe. These appear above and through the head of the meeting
leader. Parts of the backwards text are cut off. What is interesting is the placement of the text. First, I'll give you the readable text.

Private (cut off)
DataSet
Sql (cut off)
Sql (cut off)
Sql (cut off)

The middle line (Sql) appears directly above the leader's head. The other two reflected Sql words are situated on the leader's scalp.

Pretty clever...

Consciously, it's a bunch of IT processes. Subliminally we can read some of the backwards text but by no means can we read all of it -- so we get a "feeling". Here's what you're supposed to feel from this text -- XML is everywhere while leaders use SQL.

I hope you get a chance to look at this new print ad. From memory I've seen it in Info World and eWeek.

For our next installment, we'll discuss the consequences of the Microsoft's .NET print advertising changes. Why did Microsoft dramatically change the tenor and the tone of the message?

Bill Anderson